The completion of the internal market reduces the capacity of member states to shape the collective fate of their citizens through their own policies, while the policy-making capacity of the European Community cannot be increased sufficiently to compensate for the loss of fate control at the national level. If European economic integration nevertheless depends on policy coordination, there is a need for coordination techniques which impose minimal constraints on the autonomous problem solving capacities of member states. These depend, in turn, on the willingness of member states to pursue their own policy goals in ways which impose minimal constraints on free movement within the European market.